The Face You Forgot
by Yin Long Nocturne
Summary: Petunia has known from a very young age that people always see what they want to.
A/N: This is something I've had for a very long time. I've just polished it up a bit.

* * *

Petunia has known from a very young age that people always see what they want to. They could never see that she wasn't jealous of Lily, no matter how many times she said it wasn't so. They never saw that she was quite happy with her life. They never saw because she got really good at lying and hiding and sneaking. Nobody knew the real Petunia. They just saw what they wanted to see. All except Severus Snape.

Petunia Evans first met Severus Snape at the local playground when she was nine, and her little sister Lily was seven. She knew that he was always on the outskirts, hovering off in the distance with his face covered by chin length black hair. But she had never actually talked to him. This day was going to be different.

For one, Lily was doing that stupid floating trick. Petunia thought that she was just asking for it, doing that in public. Just asking for someone to believe she was possessed or some other such nonsense. And it was on this day, that she finally did get caught, by the little boy that always sat underneath the tree at the edge of the park. He saw her and then he came over and asked her to do it again. Lily, being the sort of person she was, quite happily obliged. The boy seemed excited after seeing her do it, and promptly asked if she'd done anything else like it.

Lily foolishly proceeded to tell him in great detail all about the strange things that had ever happened in their house. That time the walls in their room changed colour, the time their mother's hair grew out overnight, the time the vase they'd knocked repaired itself before their parents could find out. It all came tumbling out.

"You're a witch!" The boy gasped when she finally ran out of breath.

At the perceived insult Lily started to cry. "You don't have to call me names, you, you, idiot!" she blubbered, stamping her feet in rage.

Petunia sighed; she'd have to run interference and control the damage of her younger sister's formidable temper… again.

"Come on Lily, he isn't worth your tears, go back to house. I'll be there soon, and Grammy's coming over tomorrow, didn't you want to make her a picture? Maybe another for Grampa too?."

"Okay, sissy, I will." She sniffled slightly before drying her tears and running back down the road, heading for home. After watching her sister disappear around the bend in the street, Petunia turned back to the boy who had called her sister a witch.

Petunia may have only been nine, but she was smart, very smart and already quite critical of the world. When she heard that boy announce Lily's possibly devastating secret to all and sundry. She got mad, justifiably so in her opinion, and she walked right up to him and slapped him across the face. Hard; before whispering quietly in his ear to follow her and storming off muttering under her breath about idiot boys who couldn't keep their mouths shut, who didn't understand the danger of too much knowledge and the fear humans had of the unknown or their tendency to ignore the things they didn't wish to see.

Severus stared mutely after her for a long moment before racing to catch up. He reached her just past the park boundary and they walked in an awkward silence as they headed towards the woods at the end of street. Severus was quite scared now, whoever said women weren't scary was an idiot, a blind idiot he thought, Petunia looking like an avenging angel when she was defending her sister.

Petunia stopped just inside the fringe of the tree line just past Severus' house; far enough in that they were out of sight but not so far as to get lost or run into some of the forest's nastier inhabitants. She turned around and regarded coolly Severus for several long minutes before she finally spoke.

"You should be more careful, you know. Saying that Lily is a witch in public is asking for it. For both you and her." She said harshly, not bothering to soften her tone at all. "You should have more discretion, humans aren't so compassionate as to not care. Lily would be ostracised, or attempted to exorcised or sent to a psychiatric ward. And you would be her roommate, for believing in such a thing as witchcraft. The human race has not grown at all since the time of witch burnings. You truly are an idiot aren't you!" Her voice had grown tenser and quieter all through her rant until she was hissing through gritted teeth.

By this point she was pacing agitatedly in front of Severus and he was staring at her in mute horror. To him it was incomprehensible that he could have possibly caused the start of something to akin to the feared witch burnings.

"They wouldn't really do that, would they?" Severus' voice was shaky with disbelief, "They wouldn't really lock us away? Or burn us at the stake?"

"Oh, you moronic fool they would. They might not burn you at the stake anymore, but there are horrors far worse than that." She sighed explosively; this would take more explaining than she'd thought, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Look I can't explain all this to you now. Can you be out here tomorrow, ten-ish? I just don't have the time right now. I have to go home and calm Lily, reassure my parents and they will worry at me incessantly if I'm out too much longer." Seeing his nod off affirmation she walked up to him and brushed a finger over the bruise marring his cheek ' _sliath'_ she hissed and walked past him without a second glance. Hurrying back her family's home.

Severus stood frozen in fear, she had hissed. Just like a snake, like the legendary Salazar Slytherin was said to have been able to. He didn't know what to think. Severus's reached his up reached up to cup his cheek and he realized, with a start, that it didn't hurt anymore. Petunia was witch. A noble witch from the line of Slytherin. She must be to be a parselmouth.


End file.
